Monday, 21 September 2009

Today's top ConservativeHome features
ToryDiary: LibDem activists want coalition with Labour, not Tories

Seats and candidates: Jacqui Lait MP set to become latest Tory MP to retire


TheChoice

ConservativeHome begins its fifty part series on David Cameron's Conservatives with an examination of two key characteristics of the project: (1) The fact that David Cameron is comfortable with all of the big Tory traditions and (2) His machine's focus on opinion polls and electoral considerations.

Seats and candidates: A week in the life of Lee Martin, the man campaigning to be Sunderland's first Conservative MP since the 1960s

Michael Merrick on Platform: Could Red Toryism insert a dose of conservatism back into the Conservative Party?

StarChamber: Ed Balls' proposals for reductions in the number of education workers and consolidation of school leadership

Roger Helmer MEP on CentreRight: Edward McMillan-Scott MEP has been "exposed as one of those MEPs who sought, and obtained, re-selection by making mildly euro-sceptic speeches at home, while promoting the cause of Greater Europe in Brussels."

Today's top news stories

Liberal Democrats plan tax on million pound homes as part of £17.1bn attack on reliefs that benefit the rich

CleggTax

"The plans will be unveiled by Vince Cable, the Treasury spokesman. The boldest element is an annual levy of .5 per cent on a property's value above a threshold of £1m. This would mean additional tax of £2,500 a year on a home valued at £1.5m, or £15,000 a year on a house worth £4m." - Independent

Vince Cable will announce an increase in the lower income tax threshold to £10,000, taking four million low-paid people out of the tax system - Politics.co.uk

Vince Cable calls for freeze on public sector pay at Liberal Democrat conference - Guardian

Clegg cites differences on Europe and tax as reasons to rebuffing Cameron's overtures - Herald

Nick Clegg faced a conference backlash over his plans for “bold and even savage” public spending cuts - FT

Kennedy warns Nick Clegg against dumping free tuition fees policy - Independent

CBI: University students in the UK should pay more for their loans and accept higher tuition fees as "inevitable" - BBC

Charles Kennedy styles himself as champion of LibDem grassroots - Times

Chris Grayling features in the main Daily Mail splash about public drunks

"The Government has created an environment where the stigma that used to be attached to behaving drunkenly and disgracefully in public has just disappeared." - The Shadow Home Secretary quoted in the Daily Mail

Boris Johnson warns against cutting investment in Britain's infrastructure

JohnsonBorisCheltenham

"This country desperately needs new infrastructure. The road network is deteriorating. We need new low-carbon power stations – whether nuclear or renewable. We need high-speed rail, Crossrail, an upgraded Tube and, with Heathrow running at 99 per cent capacity, we need a new and visionary solution to our aviation needs, and one that does not involve more planes stacked over London. British workers are already less competitive than their continental rivals, mainly because of our run-down infrastructure. We would be utterly crazy to compound that disadvantage by cutting back programmes of improvement." - Boris Johnson in The TelegraphRSA's Matthew Taylor says voters are opposed to spending cuts or tax rises that hurt them

"By more than eight to one respondents agreed that the spending gap can be closed merely by efficiency measures. If forced to choose between spending cuts and tax rises, voters are split. But when it comes to who cuts or rises might affect the answer is simple; “not me, guv”. Services most or all of us use — such as the NHS, schools and the police — are seen as sacrosanct, with the preferred targets for cuts being those deemed undeserving. Reducing education programmes in prisons is most popular while, in the NHS, forcing smokers or the obese to change their lifestyles before accessing treatment was ten times as popular as any cut that would affect the more virtuous majority." - Matthew Taylor in The Times

"The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicted £60billion in spending cuts and £40billion in tax increases from Labour and £80billion in cuts and £20billion in rises from the Tories." - Daily Mail

The Sun: Cut spending before increasing taxes

"The country won't wear higher tax unless it sees drastic cuts being made in unnecessary State spending. That means the axe for silly town hall jobs, pointless Whitehall departments and absurd quangos. All must go before we start hammering working people with higher income tax." - The Sun Says

The son of former health secretary Patricia Hewitt has been charged with possession of cocaine - Express

The Sun blames Ms Hewitt: "As health supremo, Ms Hewitt was part of a Government that took a lax attitude as cocaine use spiralled. The past year saw a 25 per cent rise in cocaine users to one million. Drug use is at its highest since 1996. Ms Hewitt is one of Labour's liberal trendies who let down parents by going soft on drugs. What you sow, you reap."

Brown offers to save the world again as he promises to save Copenhagen climate deal - BBC

Ed Balls and Nick Brown lead Cabinet revolt against plans for voting reform - Guardian

MPs' expenses scandal 'most shocking story of last 50 years' - Telegraph poll

World leaders rush to cap the wrong kind of bank bonuses

"All the restrictions on bonuses being dreamt up by the Fed or G20 would have done nothing to stop the bubble. We would have had sub-prime and CDOs. Life is not that easy; what a shame nobody wants to know." - Allister Heath in City AM

And finally...

"A councillor has been dumped by the Conservatives after he posted a 'How Sexy Am I' quiz on his Facebook profile." - Metro